


Vertigo

by grayorca15, YearwalktheWorld



Series: Triverse [13]
Category: Castle Rock (TV), Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 13:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19110469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayorca15/pseuds/grayorca15, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YearwalktheWorld/pseuds/YearwalktheWorld
Summary: AU/Crossover. Get it off the bucket list, Connor.





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene from chapter 15 of _Trifecta_.
> 
> #whocares

Maybe he wasn’t as over it as he thought. But protocol recommended, if not demanded, he recalibrate in the event of such a distressing discovery. The coin was still stashed in his lapel, but he didn’t reach for it until Lieutenant Anderson pressed the elevator call button.

Connor stopped short of pulling it out as the doors chimed, announcing the car’s arrival. Thinking twice of potentially aggravating Hank, and so soon after disobeying the order to stay behind cover, maybe he would be better off without it.

His hands were still a tad shaky, even if the rest of his systems had unwound back to their normal rhythms. The pressure in his thirium lines wasn’t ideal. Dust had accumulated to an uncomfortable degree in a few filtration points.

But he was online to enjoy these problems, compared to the dark nothingness he had gotten an uncomfortable taste of.

Hank hadn’t asked about it.

Yet. And the moment they stepped into the elevator, he probably would. The chances were uncomfortably high. He hadn’t yet out of consideration for what unknowing ears were around. The FBI certainly didn’t need any inklings there was something wrong with the DPD’s prototype.

That firefight on the roof was spectacle enough without arousing more suspicions.

The doors opened. Hank stepped through.

Connor hesitated.

His feet were still on the floor when the policeman turned to notice the RK800 hadn’t followed.

"Hey, you comin', or not?" One eyebrow raised, Hank at least didn't sound too pissed off or moody toward him. It was a marked improvement over the car ride, and the initial elevator trip up from the ground floor.

That was before they saw what they had on the seventy-ninth floor. There weren’t any human casualties, other than to the public’s collective wariness at the broadcast which so abruptly interrupted Channel 16.

At the moment, Connor thought the worst damage done was the PL600’s gunshot wound. It wouldn’t have been so bad, _if_ he had disconnected before the pistol went off.

He thought he would be fast enough to-

Forcing the thought aside, he marched into the car, hands dropping to his sides. Pivoting on one heel, he pressed the ground floor button, then stood back. The doors thunked shut.

Hank could read what he pleased into the motion.

"Hmph. Don't get pissy with me." Warning him before that could occur, Hank crossed his arms, almost defensive looking at Connor's mute reaction. "Quit it. We've got to talk."

Did they?

Gyros off-centered, taking time to reorient, Connor tilted his head back to watch the floors pass them by.

77… 76… 75…

Maybe these were the fastest cars in Detroit, but right now they weren’t fast enough for his liking. He couldn’t remain quiet the whole way down and expect Hank to do the same.

“What about, Lieutenant? …I’m fine.”

If one didn’t count the bloody holes in his arm and shoulder, at least. His new jacket was already waiting back at Central. Both shots had been through-and-throughs. His self-repairs would mend the worst of the damage.

His fingers were still twitching, little unchecked volts of electricity running along the wires. There was nothing to be done for that, and if he hid them, that would only be even more suspicious.

"Really? You don't seem fine." Nodding towards his hands, Hank made it clear that he did see the twitching for himself. "You can't just keep shit like what just happened to yourself, Connor."

70… 69… 68…

Why not? Computers were made to keep data quiet, closed and compartmentalized. Simply because he was having a little difficulty assimilating it all didn’t mean repeating it so soon would ease digestion.

Connor scoffed, blinking hard to cover up a twitch of one jaw cable. “I’m no worse than I was before today. Really.”

He couldn’t explain it in terms Hank could understand. The man’s technical know-how was pitifully little. Being top of his class at the police academy didn’t imbue him with an understanding of android design.

It was probably for the better. If Anderson knew, he would be making even more of a fuss.

Thank rA9 for small favors.

" _Really."_ Sounding no less convinced, Hank let out his own scoff at the explanation. "Now that's some bullshit if I've ever heard it. Sure, you ain't showin' it as much as some other androids, but you're lookin' a bit goddamn jumpy, Connor."

He knew lying was no further use. But past experiences demanded he at least try. Even if it was like trying to hide behind a clear plastic sheet, at least it counted as some kind of nonverbal barrier between them.

_Show him. Show him he’s wrong. You’re okay._

Deftly unhooking the quarter from its tiny, slotted pocket, he let it roll across the tops of his fingers. Without looking, he snatched it as the metal disk careened over his pinky finger to flip it back through, over and under, his digits. It came to a stop in the niche between his thumb and index finger.

Point made, systems that small measure more settled, Connor spared the man a sideways look. “A ‘jumpy’ android wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

"You made a coin spin, congratulations. That doesn't prove shit, just because you can do a fancy trick." Pointing an angry finger at the coin, Hank pushed himself up from his leaning position as he did so. "Why are you bein' so against just - admitting it? Fuck, anyone woulda been scared, much less someone who could _feel_ it."

Admitting it would mean acknowledging it ever happened. Even now, less than half an hour later, he couldn’t shake the aftereffects. He had been through countless simulations throughout development that hadn’t seemed half as visceral.

At the time, Anderson’s concern sounded almost genuine.

_(Are you hurt?)_

But had that even been real worry? Or feigned, a reflexive action the man only partook because he had seen (something resembling) a person in shock?

With another hard reset of a blink, Connor scowled. The pressure behind his optics wasn’t helping his concentration. Or the dried thirium staining his torn clothes chafing his skin. He was against admitting to that discomfort as much as anything.

“It wasn’t the first time I’ve been under fire, Lieutenant.”

Maybe that came off as part accusing. But it was true.

What room did he have to be afraid after experiencing the black void once before?

"The first time you said you were afraid of dying, though, even if it was through that other android. That shit can't just _not_ stay with you, of all people. And you got hit this time, right? Did you expect that?"

“There was a chance. Of course I expected it.” Pausing to regard the ragged blue stains, glimpsing the bright neon flashes of his own inner workings, the RK800 flicked his thumb upward. With a soft _ting_ the quarter sailed up into the air, then back down into his waiting palm. He could multitask between recalibration and conversation. “And I’ve already consolidated the recount file. It shouldn’t interfere with our investigation, going forward.”

No, a dead deviant to examine was not the ideal result.

But it was better than nothing.

"Oh, yeah? It shouldn't? There's no fuckin' investigation, long as you keep acting the way you are. It's starting to piss me off again, the way you've just decided you're fine, when you're clearly not."

“Forgive me, but I believe _I_ have a better idea of what the operational status of my software is than you.” Almost growling right back, Connor leveled another glare at his for-better-for-worse supervisor. At some point, Anderson claiming he was getting mad lost its impact, having heard it so much. “But I’d gladly export a diagnostic to your phone, provided you could read it.”

"I thought I already told you before to not fucking talk to me like that." Glaring right back at him, like a mirror of ire, Hank at least didn't start forward to grab him, or anything of the likes, hands just settled in fists at his sides. "Fine, asshole. If you say you're so fuckin' fine, act like it. You're doing a piss poor impression of someone who's 'fine' right now."

Clearly, their definitions of the word did not line up.

48… 47… 46…

Did he really have to say the words, that he didn’t want to talk about it? Didn’t his reticent behavior communicate such well enough already?

“Thank you for your concern, all the same.”

Eyes forward, refocusing on the receding floor numbers, he spin-flicked the quarter again, sending it into a stationary twirl atop one fingertip.

"Hmph. Sure." Seemingly forcing himself to keep his words at just that, Hank rolled his eyes at the coin. He hardly seemed impressed with it, or the false show of gratitude.

That was fair. It rendered them an equalized couple of discontent charlatans. Just as much as the android wouldn’t admit to the destabilization, Anderson wouldn’t admit to really caring. He hated androids, and said prototype was meant to embody that to a tee.

What else did the policeman think he was?

“If you cared so much, you would’ve tried to stop me.”

And as the incident in Ravendale showed, it took more than a simple _don’t_ to enforce such an order.

Going deathly quiet for a moment, Hank let out another scoff with the sheer incredulity of what Connor had just said, arms crossing over his chest again. "Stop you from puttin' yourself directly in the line of fire? I do recall screamin' at you to stay put, but you were bein' such a dumbass you didn't listen. Maybe you learned your lesson about just rushing in."

_(Why do you never do what I say?)_

“You said _nothing_ , Lieutenant.” Snapping up the coin before it could fall, Connor stowed it in his lapel before calling up a blank holoscreen between his fingers. They still showed a slight tremble. “And I can play it back in real time if you don’t believe me.”

"Okay, so if I had said 'don't go, stay put,' would you have fuckin' listened to me? Is there _any_ point in me giving you orders you're not gonna listen to, wastin' my breath?" Shaking his head at Connor with more than a little anger, bordering on furiousness, Hank almost seemed on the verge of pushing him away. "So don't start your bullshit about caring whether _I_ care, when you clearly couldn't give a shit about it. I'm not going to try, if you're not going to listen."

The screen in his palm flickered, then vanished with a staticky crackle. After the fact, Connor thought to close his fingers, one set of joints haltingly curling after the other, and put his arm down.

Grappling with its own deadlogging processes, his HUD seemed to gray out, the saturation in his vision fading before dialing back up. Several red outlines of boxes winked into existence, overlapping each other. Jumbled lines of text and symbols filled each.

At least the dreaded _system instability_ message didn’t bloom in the corner of his vision.

_Error… eRror… sys-syStem erRor…_

The pressure in his head doubled. Teeth gritting against the momentary short circuit, Connor seethed under his breath, “Fuck what you care, then.”

Apparently he didn’t seethe quietly enough.

Letting out no other warning sound but a huff of infuriation, Hank's wide, calloused hand went up, not holding back or hesitating as it did so, before he slapped Connor across the face. Even as the sound was still resounding, he grabbed the android’s shoulder, roughly pulling him closer and up, so they were eye-to-eye.

"You want to say that again, Connor? Go ahead, I dare you!"

The error boxes divided into neat stacks at both sides of his vision. The strike didn’t hurt, sounding more like a slap against thick plastic than a solid, fleshy mass. Optics reorienting on Hank’s narrowed blue eyes, Connor forced his own features back to a blank. An echo of the threat/demand reverberated through his audio processors.

_(Say that again)_

He would be lying once more if he didn’t admit to wanting to. There was something oddly satisfying in throwing out a well-timed curse word.

Held in place, the elevator rumbled down the last full measure of floors. Sparing the numbers a sideways glance, he frowned.

He could say it again. But what would it accomplish?

The man was already livid. It wasn’t advisable to further provoke him.

Looking down at the hand gripping his bloodied jacket, then back to Hank’s face, Connor dropped his gaze.

A submissive eye-lowering was better than any words he might have thought up.

Letting go, Hank shoved him away, still seething but without focusing that energy specifically toward him. "Don't you take that goddamn tone of voice with me ever again, _or_ swear at me. I'm not fucking around with you."

It was hard to tell sometimes. Between the three of his set, whatever attention and/or advice seemed to be cast his way had always sounded a bit weary. With the exception of a bullet through the head, Hank Anderson hadn’t yet taken time to impart so serious a lesson on him.

He almost regretted pushing it this far.

Peeking through the tops of his eyes, gyros still leveling out, Connor settled for raising an eyebrow.

That was appropriately snarky, if nonverbal.

"Ugh. Fuck, you know who you remind me of?" Nodding his head at whoever he had in mind, Hank almost seemed to laugh at the comparison, snapping his fingers at however good it was. "Gavin, newly assigned, then fresh off the exam… you and him are so alike sometimes, it's honestly fucking irritating. Here I thought I wasn't gonna have to deal with that - 'give me attention, but I'll still be pissy' - attitude of his. Little did I know."

Yes.

How little did he know, and how appropriate a comparison.

But even with his instabilities, past imprints and present spikes blending together into one scribbled mess, Connor liked to think he had better manners.

Dropping one eff bomb was enough.

Rushing Simon had been just the start. He shouldn’t have put himself in a position to have to use one, anyway.

Arriving at the ground floor, the car opened without much ceremony. Sighing at him one last time, Hank ran his fingers through his hair as he stepped off. He turned the corner and strode through the front desk, right past the reporters being held at bay by police lines and patrol androids.

Following on automatic, Connor didn’t think to cover up his stained jacket.

His appearance was no longer so immaculate, inside or out.


End file.
